Tag: FTTx

By Paul Krajewski

The Town of High River is exploring high speed Internet options for local homes and businesses, while Axia, an Internet service provider, attempts to drum up support for its plan to build the fiber optic cable infrastructure needed to support the service. “The original idea of engaging Axia was to benefit economic development, especially after the flood,” said Kent Blair, manager of information services for the Town of High River. He said that along with providing widespread residential access, the town is focused on improving access in key business areas including the downtown core, the 12th Avenue corridor and the east side industrial park. Continue reading

Melissa Caliger

Muscatine Power and Water officials say it is possible and they have a plan to make surfing the web a better experience by increasing Internet speeds and a switch from coaxial cable wiring to lightning-fast fiber-optic cable by the end of 2017.

Every modern politician — from mayors and members of city councils, to those who serve in the legislature — has an obligation to ensure that responsible policies are enacted in order to help their residents and businesses compete in a global economy. Part of this obligation is to provide the infrastructure that allows residents and private industry to succeed. The success of Thomas Edison’s light bulb was only fully realized after government helped create the conditions that made it possible for private industry to make electricity more readily accessible to all. Access to electricity spurred a decades long period of economic growth throughout the country. And now, the situation with broadband internet is no different. Communities across the country are beginning to see that access to abundant bandwidth is having a similarly transformative impact on the economy.

Today, for a community like Huntsville, broadband access is no longer a luxury. It is an imperative. Given the makeup of our economy, in-home broadband is critical to attracting and retaining companies and improving local government services and operations. It is also becoming an increasingly effective way for local utilities to manage the flow of information and resources delivered to their customers. Continue reading

As one of the communities Google Fiber has selected for potential provision of its gigabit fiber to the home (FTTH) services (see “Google Fiber sets FTTH sights on three new cities”), Louisville officials had passed unanimously a “One Touch Make Ready” ordinance that would enable Google Fiber and other broadband services providers in the future to access city utility poles and attach the necessary hardware to provide services themselves. AT&T owns between 25% and 40% of those poles, the Courier-Journal reports, and the ordinance potentially would allow its competitors to move AT&T’s equipment on the pole to make room for the new infrastructure. Continue reading

Huntsville is doing it right. They can attract Google and other service providers to utilize their fiber infrastructure while seeing a modest return on investment. Citizens benefit from better services and price competition. I hope that more municipalities start utilizing this model.

Google Fibersaid on Monday that it plans to bring its gigabit Internet service to Huntsville, Alabama. But instead of laying its own fiber, Google will offer service over a network that is being built by the city-owned Huntsville Utilities. Huntsville will lease space on the network to Google so it can offer Internet service. But it’s not an exclusive deal, so other Internet providers could offer broadband over the same fiber. Huntsville, a city of nearly 190,000 residents, has been planning the fiber build for more than a year.

City officials “see it as a low-risk investment, as compared to administering the gigabit Internet themselves, which would require a massive increase in personnel in an arena where they have limited expertise,” local news station WHNT reported today. Google Fiber should be available to the first Huntsville customers by the middle of 2017, but it could take a few years to extend service throughout the city, the report said. Continue reading

Back in 2013, then FCC boss Julius Genachowski issued a “1 Gbps challenge”: basically a pledge to ensure there was at least one gigabit network operating in all fifty states by 2015. As we noted at the time it was kind of a show pony goal; notorious fence-sitter Genachowski was simply setting a goal he knew the industry would probably meet with or without’s government help, so that government could come in at a later date and insist it played an integral role.

We combed through our archives and other online resources and, by our tally, at least one network operator has announced plans to offer gigabit service in every state. Not all of these networks are actually deployed or supporting service yet. But generally network operators don’t announce specific markets more than a year or two in advance of when they expect to deliver service.

NTS Communications, Inc. (“NTS”) today announced the launch of high speed Internet service up to 1 Gigabit in Abilene, TX. The service is delivered over a state-of-the-art pure fiber to the premise (FTTP) network. Effective immediately, local business customers in serviceable areas, including the downtown area, will have access to NTS’ Gigabit Fiber Network, which will provide speeds up to 1 Gbps (1,000Mbps).

Cyrus Driver, President & CEO of NTS stated, “We are very excited to continue the rollout of our Gigabit Internet speeds to Abilene, making it NTS’ next ‘Gigabit City’. Our Gigabit Fiber Network will provide the Abilene business community with a highly reliable technical infrastructure for many years to come. NTS’ Gigabit services are delivered over a pure fiber network and directly connect to our customers at their premise. This pure and powerful solution will not only provide highly desirable services to current businesses, but will position Abilene as an even more competitive location for new business and industries in Texas.” Continue reading